Arguing
by Chima
Summary: You can't live with someone without having a few disagreements.


"Hey, don't get comfortable!" the blond yells as Sasuke flops onto the couch - gracefully, dammit, how can you flop _gracefully?!_ - next to the pile of boxes stacked on the floor.

"How the hell could I?" he snaps back, folding arms behind his head and closing his eyes. "This place is cramped and it smells. And worst of all," every inch of him oozes loathing, as if even heaven would be beneath him, "now I can't even come home to get away from you," and _especially_ talking to the loud splat of orange that somehow blends in with the chaos of the apartment.

"Just remember you're not here for good! Don't get your shit mixed in with mine!" Naruto kicks one of the boxes and storms out of the room. Loudly. He can't do _anything _quietly.

-----

Escort mission. Easy. Get some dignitary from Iwa to Konoha. Wait a few hours - a few days tops - for him to finish whatever business he had in Konoha, then bring him back.

But this dignitary was too rich for his own good. Wanted extra protection against the near-nonexistent bandits on the road, and the hired killers he thought he was important enough to attract. So he hired the flashiest he saw in the Konoha bingo books - the bunshin/henge specialist with unreal chakra, and the heir of the Sharingan.

Now he was sitting on his horse between and slightly behind a loudmouth in bright orange and a pale shadow with spinning red eyes, trying to act like he wasn't terrified of the chakra he felt rising around him.

"It's a horse. We have to stay on the road."

"Oh, come on. Horses can go through the woods. We'll cut the time to almost nothing!"

"You're a fucking moron. We'd be even more vulnerable to attack - this guy can't run if there's trouble." A small, insulted squawk came from the dignitary's mouth, but nothing more after the red eyes slashed over him.

"There's not going to be an attack, and you know it. If we stay on the road then we won't be home for three days - go cross-country and we'll be back in Konoha tonight, get some ramen for me and those prissy onigiri you like so much...maybe go see Sakura and Ino..."

"Shut up and walk, Naruto."

"Come on! Look at this horse - it wants to run, at least!" and then Naruto slapped the horse on the rear and it rushed forward with a shriek.

"You fucking _moron!"_ Sasuke yelled as he raced after the howling dignitary, Naruto laughing close behind.

-----

"You FUCK!" Naruto swore, bulling into Sasuke as he was heading out the back door. They tumbled out together, already kicking and biting before they hit the ground. "What the hell were you thinking?!"

A burst of chakra explodes between them, throwing them back a few feet and then they're at each other's throats again. "What the fuck does your tiny pea-brain think I did _now?!"_ It was undoubtedly something infitesimal, utterly unimportant to the rest of the world but enormous to Naruto. Something he'd forgotten to put back, or had put back when he shouldn't have, left a door open or closed a window.

The frige. Suddenly he knew, it was the frige. He'd put the milk back in the door instead of on the top shelf.

"You left the goddamn milk out again!"

"I didn't leave it out, you dead-last moron! I put it in the door!"

"It'll get warm there and go bad!"

"No it WON'T!" on the last word he shoved Naruto back, and before the boy could come in close again hurled a volley of shuriken. "The fridge is the same temperature all the way through!"

"Not if you take more than ten seconds to get what you want out!" a wave of chakra washed over Sasuke and then there are eight blonds dodging between flying shuriken. Sasuke leapt back, planting his feet on the underside of a branch and the trunk of a tree and rearing back. "Some of us like to look for a minute!"

Then there's fire flowing from between Sasuke's fingers and all eight are caught in the blast, the scraggly grass just recovering from the last fight singed back to the ground. Then he's tackled from behind; he should've _known_ they were all clones. They're _always _all clones. That's why he doesn't hesitate using his stronger Katon. But somehow Naruto managed to sneak up behind him - and now he's sitting on his back, pinning the dark-haired boy's arm behind him and grinding his face in the dirt.

He could get away if he really wanted to - but that would involve dislocating his shoulder, most likely, and it wasn't worth it.

-----

Bounty mission. Easy. Sniff out a bastard from whatever rock he was hiding under, bag him, bring him back to Konoha and get paid. He has to be alive, but other specifications as to his condition upon arrival are...vague.

The town he's hiding in is on the edge of the Land of Fire. Just enough within the borders that they have the law on their side, but close enough to the Land of Grass that if they're too open it'd give Tsunade trouble.

They've scoped the guy out. The bounty goes to a bar every night. It's full of criminals, a rat hole for the dregs of society that had no desire to be even decent human beings.

"We sneak in and get him out as quickly and quietly as possible." It's a good plan - too much trouble would put a strain on Tsunade and the team she keeps specifically to smooth over the trouble Naruto and Sasuke cause.

"Oh, come _on._ That whole place is rotten to the core. Let's just bunshin and take the place apart. We can pick the guy out of the pieces afterward." They're sitting on a rooftop a few blocks down. Naruto has a bottle of something unidentifiable, and he takes a swig of it. He's grinning at the thought of just letting loose. "Even you could make enough bunshin to tear the place down around their ears."

"We're supposed to keep it quiet."

"Oh, screw that. We've been on shit jobs for ages. Let's cut loose and have some _fun."_

Sasuke opens his mouth to argue, but Naruto is already sailing toward the ground. Sasuke swears and is after him a moment later. Ten feet from the ground Naruto multiplies into five - ten - twenty - and then they're all yelling and piling through the doors and windows of the bar. Sasuke splits into a half-dozen copies of himself, slicing through the arm of a man raising a blade to one of the Narutos' back. The kunai sticks halfway through his arm and he leaves it, mind leaping from body to body as they weave a deadly dance of chakra and blades.

"Watch your _back!"_ Sasuke hisses, knowing the message will be passed through all the Narutos in an instant and that they'll just as sequentially ignore it. He's proven right when a Naruto disappears in a puff of smoke a moment later, the bottle he'd been holding falling to the floor and shattering. The others barely take notice, brawling in a mass of orange that's becoming more and more spattered with dark stains of blood and alcohol.

"Get that stick out of your ass, Sasuke! I always know where I am!" the Narutos echo each other creepily, a feral grin on all their faces as they pummel the scum in the bar. They're taking damage as well, three more Narutos disappear from existence and Sasuke holds back a gasp as a rush of pain shoots through the chakra that returns to him when one of his own clones is destroyed, but soon there's only one guy left. They have him backed into the corner, surrounded by four Sasukes and six Narutos. A commotion can be heard from down the street - no ninja in this town, apart from them, so they resort to police and mobs.

"You jackass. Tsunade's going to ream us _both_ a new one."

"Oh, shut the fuck up, Sasuke," one of the Narutos says as he wipes blood off his cheek, the rest crossing their arms over their chests. "You know it was fun." He takes another swig of the bottle he'd carried in with him - or maybe he'd just picked it up.

"_Fun_ isn't part of the mission. The mission is to get this sack of shit to Konohagakure in mostly one piece." The guy flinches as Sasuke's words jump from one of his bunshin to the next and they gesture at him with various weapons.

"It doesn't always have to be a shitstain on your memory, though!" the same Naruto as before steps toward a Sasuke, turning away from the guy, and suddenly there's a crossbow bolt planted in his chest. The other Narutos disappear and the one looks down at his chest stupidly, mouth falling open.

"NARUTO!!" Sasuke screams, diving toward the blond and catching him before he hits the ground. He barely notices the scumbag making a break for it, leaping over bodies and broken furniture on his way to the door. All he sees is the blood dripping from the corners of Naruto's mouth and the shocked look in his blue eyes. He can feel the point of the bolt coming out of Naruto's back, just to the right of his sternum. "Hold on, just hold on--"

There's a thump from behind him and he hears a scream - he whirls around to see a man with a crossbow slump over the bar, throat cleanly cut. His eyes dart up and there's Naruto, crouching over the doorway like a gaudy gargoyle, the bar's brightly-colored lights masking his presence.

"I always know where I am," he grins and laughs as the weight of the clone disappears from Sasuke's hands and the crossbow bolt clatters to the floor. Their target is writhing on the floor with both his knees pierced by kunai.

"You unrepentant IDIOT!" Sasuke yells and hurls a fistful of shuriken at him, they thunk into the wood where he'd been an instant before. He ignores the fact that he could've - would've - been taken down by the same crossbowman because he'd gone straight for Naruto. Keep fighting and yelling and pretend you hadn't just been scared half to death because you thought you'd lost him.

-----

"It's _toothpaste_."

"And how the hell do you get it out if it's split down the middle? Huh? Tell me that!"

"It wasn't split down the middle -- oh for fuck's sake! Why the hell are we arguing about this?!" Sasuke batted Naruto's hand away, knocking the tube from his hand and onto the floor.

"Because it's important!"

"No it's NOT!" Sasuke stomped his foot on the floor, feeling like a child throwing a tantrum but not caring. "It's fucking stupid - it's _toothpaste_ for god's sake! So I squeeze the tube a different way than you do - it's not a matter of life and death! Just fix it and forget about it!"

"It's my damn house! If you're not happy with it then get out!"

"Tsunade--"

"I don't CARE what Tsunade said! You never did! Stop pretending you're following orders for any reason other than it'd be too much trouble started to go against them!"

He almost told him then - that he'd not been ordered to stay with him, that he'd chosen to. That he could've easily found a new place to live within a week. But that would've been admitting weakness. Admitting he was sick of the quiet, and the only place he knew he'd never have to listen to the sound of silence was with Naruto. Admitting that Tsunade had given him a long look when he'd told her he wanted to stay with Naruto until he found a new apartment, and his glare back had quieted her questions and made her silently agree not to advertise that she hadn't actually assigned Sasuke to living with Naruto.

So instead he turned and walked out the door, ignoring Naruto when he started yelling for him not to turn and walk away.

This time he was ready when Naruto barrelled toward him and spun to the side just enough to grab Naruto when he flashed by. He flipped Naruto into the air, slamming him into the ceiling of the porch and catching him when he came down again to swing him back in the front door. Something smashed as the blond landed on it - probably the mirror at the end of the entryway, and the small table beneath it.

-----

Eliminate an intruder. Easy. Find the target, kill him.

But Naruto is loud. So a surprise attack is out of the question - was out of the question from the point the blond drilled a hole through the wall with Rasengan to get into the complex. All that's left is to chase the guy down and fight him head-on.

Sasuke isn't surprised to see bunshin all around him - almost finds it comforting. It means there's that many more targets for the intruder to aim for. And he doesn't have to worry about hitting them - Naruto always gets out of the way in time if it's really him, and if it's not him...well, they're just bunshin, and Naruto has a lot of chakra. Naruto and his bunshin never aim for Sasuke's few bunshin - he stays clear of them at all costs. Being anywhere near them for long means Naruto'll be hurting in no time.

"It's my house! I'll put my shit where I want to!" a flash as Naruto dodges from a wild blast of some kind of water jutsu and bursts the massive jet with a Rasengan.

"That doesn't mean--" Sasuke rears back and then fire is streaming from between his fingers, every bit of air forced from his lungs as the river of fire flows through the air and evaporates every droplet of water in the area. He gasps for breath, ignoring the burning feeling in his lungs caused by the soot, "--that you can put your SOCKS in the FRIDGE!" He twists his hands and sends the flame toward their target, who raises a wall of earth between himself and the fire. Sasuke swears under his breath. "What the reasoning behind that is, I'll never know!"

"They don't smell when they're cold!" Naruto yells back as the stone crumbles before another volley of Rasengans, but the enemy is already gone.

Sasuke stares around him, eyes taking in the minutest details and searching for anything out of place that would key him to the target's location. There - a careless shadow cast from behind a building. He snaps wires from where they're wrapped around his wrists and sends them flying out, hands flicking through seals even before the wires attach themselves to the buildings and form a barrier. The guy starts to run up them as easily as running along the ground, but leaps off as lightning runs along the wires from Sasuke's fingers.

"Did you ever think of actually _washing_ your clothes?!" Fire follows behind the electricity an instant later and then the compound is lit up like midday. The guy is on the ground between the two Konoha nin and the barrier, his hands are coming together to form seals but Sasuke is already rushing forward with chakra screaming in his left hand. There'll be no time for him to complete whatever jutsu he's about to use, nothing nearby for him to use in a kawarimi.

He freezes with his arm outstretched as soon as he feels it go through a barrier - it's too easy to be caught on an outheld kunai or katana if you bull into someone while using Chidori. He rips his hand out and leaps backward quickly to avoid any dying strike the man might make, glances up - freezes.

A Rasengan sputters and dies in Naruto's hands as he looks down. Sasuke can see firelight around him. Through him. Sasuke grunts at his own carelessness in pausing and anger at the waste of chakra - Rasengan and Bunshin are easy for Naruto with his huge reserves of chakra, but Chidori doesn't come cheap for Sasuke. "You idiot, don't let the enemy get a hold of your bunshin!" he yells as he rushes forward again, the target is staring at the single undissipated clone Sasuke hit; he thinks he's safe because it's one-on-one now. It's the same trick Naruto played at the bar - fake death to lull the enemy into a false sense of security.

Sasuke releases Chidori an instant early and sends the man into the still-burning wires with the burst of chakra. He turns away from the man when he falls away from the wires, burnt to a crisp.

"Oi, dead-last! Get your ass out here!" He stares around at the deserted buildings. "Don't try to ditch - a deal's a deal! I got him, so you owe me dinner! And none of that Ichiraku crap - a REAL meal this time!" No answer. "Hey! Moron, I'm talking to you, get out here!" Slowly, the hard look drained from his face. "Naruto?" He felt suddenly cold as he turned around despite the heat of the flames that made sweat bead on his skin.

He's still breathing, but it feels like he's not getting any air.

It feels like his heart has stopped.

As if from a distance he watches himself fall next to Naruto, cradling his head in his hands, calling his name. His hands turn red as he tries to revive the other, knowing it's useless - there's a hole in his chest he could, _did _put his fist through - but trying anyways. He follows himself as he carries Naruto through the village, rooftop to rooftop, straight toward the Hokage's mansion, Chidori Nageshi sparking over his body to keep the ANBU at bay as he vaults through the window to Tsunade's private quarters. She was already awake, demanding an explanation, went pale and silent for an instant when she saw Naruto, and a moment later Sasuke was rattling off facts of elemental chakra, bunshin numbers, timeframes, proximity to his lit Ryuka wires, anything that could possibly aid her as her hands moved over the blond's body. Even when there was nothing more for him to list his lips kept moving, babbling off everything he'd seen; the way the firelight had hit the shuriken flying through the air, the color Naruto's eyes turned in the moonlight, the fights over food and toilet paper and showers, the ever-present noise and grins that Sasuke needed like he needed air. He's shoved aside by Shizune as she bursts through the door; he flattens himself against the wall as if he can make himself invisible that way. He can't stop staring at the red pool spreading across the floor. A flurry of pink and Sakura is kneeling in pool as well.

He's still babbling when Tsunade and Shizune lean back, knowing nothing can be done. Sakura's hands still move over Naruto, tears falling on his jacket, until finally Tsunade grabs her wrists and tells her it's useless, use any more chakra and you'll die too.

The sound Sakura makes then he's only ever heard once before - and that time it was from his own lips when he was seven years old.

ANBU stream in now, taking hold of Sasuke. Sakura stumbles to her feet as they start to drag him out of the room. Sasuke doesn't struggle at all, just stares at the blood on Sakura's face as she tries to get the ANBU to release him.

-----

Sasuke stares at the walls of his cell and listens to Naruto bitch about how he's not going to be able to clean the bathroom if he's in prison again, and Sasuke snaps back that Naruto can do it himself since he's the one who gets dirt everywhere when he showers anyways.

Then he snaps up to a dead silence that was never there before, eyes red and spinning as adrenaline shot through his veins. His feet touch the cold floor as he stands, sleep already forgotten, and creeps toward the door. He reaches out a pale hand and yanks it open, only to have Naruto fall blubbering into his hands.

"Hrmnnn...stupid door...bit me when I tried to use the key..." he was squirming in Sasuke's arms like a kitten, and when Sasuke let him go he dropped like a rock.

"You moron, we've got a mission tomorrow-" a glance at the clock tells him it is in fact later today, but the moon in the sky says it's _tomorrow_, dammit, "-and you go out _drinking_?!"

"Oh come on, _Sasukekuuuuun,"_ he cronned in a perfect imitation of Ino as he leans heavily on te recently-repaired hall table. "You're just pissed because you get a bitch of a hangover if you drink at all and I'll be fine by morning," a fang-filled grin shoved right in Sasuke's face, so he has to plant his hand on it and send Naruto stumbling down the hall toward his room.

"No, I'm pissed because I dream when I don't have to almost suffocate myself with a pillow to block out your snoring from the next toom, and I'm sick of nightmares," he mutters, and when Naruto looks at him from across the room with a look of 'whut?' he yells, "Get your ass in bed! I'm not letting you sleep in tomorrow!"


End file.
